Guild Wars 2

Lol i just see these topic and the build is almost the same as mine with minor changes, but i use mostly scepter/shield mostly on long run into others with the gs.

Nice to see another guy like me, keep the good work.

@akamon thats similar to my train of thought upon making my post. I like the default weapons for the build a lot but i always like to add some variety to see if i enjoy a variable weapon set more or less. I already feel more tanky then when i was running AH with the default set up of this build and i was hoping someone had tried the crushing weapon variety (and you have lucky for me). Thanks for the information, i think ill invest in a mace and a shield for certain situations as is, but i will definitely be trying out the mace/focus with this build. I feel the shield may be pretty useful for zergs (pop stability, rush in, use 5 in a position where the enemy is vulnerable along cliffs or bridges could be interesting, as well as saving downed allies while two zergs clash) There’s actually a surprising amount that can be done with this build without altering trait makeup other then maybe swapping major traits around.

On a side note does anyone know of a good place to obtain cleric stat gear? or is it, as I’ve found, only available through actual labeled cleric items?

@Broskadamus – i can’t speak to how efficiently the build plays out with hammer and mace combo, but i am loving the way it works so far. with either energy sigils or +endurance food, it works wonders and though less mobile, the pace is quite fun still. and i just feel even more survivable with this weapon set, and the hammer hits very hard as well. though, i wish i had a more readily available avenue for retaliation (the hammer still depends on the auto chain to hit and against very mobile enemies, it can get rough). but YES, love the shield for the exact reasons you’ve mentioned. i’ve also had the chance to use it so help allies secure a stomp when a mini-zerg comes rushing in to either interupt of quick res.

yea, agreed. the virtues line is very strong imo and i’m having a ton of fun.

@akamon I’ll probably try out the hammer/mace at some point soon, though I’m still trying to piece together my clerics set right now, not being able to find it any other way then buying it is really hampering my ability to obtain pieces because i lack the necessary funds for now. If i could find another avenue to obtain the pieces i need that would make it a lot easier. As far as I’m aware there’s no alternative (at least as far as i know looking at the god temple armor sets and dungeon armor sets). I can’t wait to stack on my exotic gear and really check the outcomes in WvW and dungeons.

@Bros –D i know what ya mean. as it stands, cleric’s is only attained through crafting (or TP-ing) at the moment. earlier in the thread some people have mentioned they run PVT with cleric’s trinkets and weps iirc, and was working for them. i’m actually running cleric’s x2, magi’s x2 (which is kind of waste of a stat since your prec is so low, though i get added vit) which i’m using cause i got ‘em from dungeons, and then soldier’s x2. i’m slowly gonna phase out the magi’s set when i can, but at least i have the needed healing power.

take your time though and don’t rush. what i’m running now may not be max healing power, but i alreayd see the added benefits of heavily investing in it. good luck!

one thing though i will say, usually am a big fan of the staff, but not so much for this build.

@akamon yeah i was afraid of that I’m running all rares except for the weapons i crafted. I to was a big fan of the staff but i find its not as useful for this build because i seem to make up for the healing and support it offers just by using this build. Thanks for the info though, it was really helpful, ill need to find some alternatives or a good method for making money to finish my set up. I really do like this build and I’m glad Christos posted it because i had tried alternate versions of this build, but the bad reputation +healing had really turned me away until now.

Hello Chris,
We’ve spoken a few times in game and I have decided to leave my review for those that were unclear- because i was. Before i tried out this build, i was pretty skeptical and was sure AH was a better build. After playing around with the build for a few days- and doing lvl 20+ fractals with it; I’d have to say I’m pretty pleased with the result. On my level 25 frac with it this morning, I was pretty hysterical upon finishing because had only used Shelter ONCE. And that was due to the fact that i got lazy during the Grawl Shaman and didn’t swap and dodge when he did his dive. May not be impressive in other people’s eyes- but I thought that was pretty noteworthy. Also i guess i should mention that i deviated from the build a bit-

Armor set: Cleric’s
Accessories:
-Beserker Beta Fractal Capacitor
-Lunaria and Solaria Rings
-Sapphire Amulet and Earrings (although i switch out for zerkers depending on fight; but i barely notice a difference)
The last deviation is the runes. A few people had mentioned that superior and major runes dont stack. False. Tested myself a week ago and you can see the duration difference in the tooltips. For runes im using the same set up as my auramentalist-
2 major water/2 superior water/2 superior monk
For consumables i use Chocolate Omnomberry Cream for the 20% duration buff and superior sharpening stone for compensation of lack of power.
Weapons are all cleric.

All in all- this build performs VERY well in higher fractals and I suggest anyone rolling a guardian to at least try it once. Good luck and happy hunting (:

finaly I had some time to test this build in dungeons and in wvwvw….and I have to say its so ****ing awesome!

winning 1 vs 5, kiting any thing I want to…its realy great

Hello,
I ve seen some of your videos, and you dont play zerg vs zerg in any of them, Do you think your build is useful to survive under that situation? can your build follow a commander under enemy heavy fire? i mean, your videos show WvW fights very similar to SPvP combat, but when i play wvw i usually play Zerg vs zerg full time.

I’m using this build while playing in zerg or guild raid. I’m changing the following things:

- (Weapons) Sword/Focus for Mace/Shield
- (Heal) Shelter for Healing Breeze
- (Elite) Renewed Justice for Tome of Courage
- (Trait) Defender’s Flame for Strength in Numbers

Maybe should also swap in Elite Focus but i’m doing really good so far. The heal and protection provided by mace/focus with 80% boon duration (using Chocolate Omnomberry Cream) and > 1000 Healing Power is awesome.

Christos de Soufre.3802:

I’m under the impression that superiors and majors of the same type don’t stack. Can anyone confirm or deny? Either way, it’s not like trying different runes will break the build or make it overpowered. I just really like the 3 water/3 monk setup, so I haven’t considered swapping out of it.

not sure but i think nobody mentioned the following setups:

2xsuperior water 2xsuperior monk and 2xmajor sanctuary for 15+15+10=40% boon duration

or my favored:
2xsuperior water 2xsuperior monk and 2xSuperior earth for 30% boon duration and 50% (!!!) protection duration.
18 seconds protection from SaY? yes please ^^

PhilipRed.9473:

Hello,
I ve seen some of your videos, and you dont play zerg vs zerg in any of them, Do you think your build is useful to survive under that situation? can your build follow a commander under enemy heavy fire? i mean, your videos show WvW fights very similar to SPvP combat, but when i play wvw i usually play Zerg vs zerg full time.

I don’t post zerg vs zerg footage because it’s pretty cookie cutter and never that interesting (even with an organized group, most people have seen everything there is to see).

In zerg combat, I serve either as a line-breaker or I modify my traits and throw on a shield or staff and act as mid-line support for pushing into hostile ground. So yes, it can follow a commander under enemy heavy fire. I command with this build myself.

Edit: I’d recommend just using the build as a skeleton for…whatever it is you want to do. I know a few people who have tweaked the gear/traits to make it more of a group support thing, for example. Either way, if you play it correctly, you can easily be one of the most useful players in a zerg, especially when it comes to ZvZ combat.

To the OP, its a very solid, survivable build. I’ve played a very similar build in the past and am currently trying out a 0/0/30/20/20 build, which I find works better with traited meditations over shouts. I still slot traited SYS, along with JI and Smite Condition and use full runes of Dwayna for added regen and regen duration.

It is also quite survivable, and the extra source of healing from meditations can be quite nice for countering spike damage. Comboing Shield of Wrath + SYS + JI + WW/BB + Smite Condition can really help break an enemy force’s line.

how do you crit so much with a 4% crit chance…

Im going to assume because of fury from save yourselves adding 20% also it should have a 15 second duration for him because of runes/traits (even longer depending on food choice)

16 seconds, actually.

oh duh, thinking pvp boon duration runes that only give 10% forgot normal ones give 15, stupid maths.

Is your OP still your current build and equipment setup? I notice in your later videos you have more health, is that player buffs or a change to your set up?

Probably WvW buffs. I do have Soldiers’s Ascended ring/back items though.

For someone who is not 80 yet (I’m 51) and who wants to try the build, how will you spend the attributes, how many in which and in what order?

And sure, I have basic armor as well (I craft mine)

Oh, and I’m mostly pve. I’ll try pvp, but not yet, and I do mostly pve…

Thanks

Hello Christos, thanks for this post, very usefull.
I lately switched from a full berserker build to a full cleric one, just for the taste of being an old “D&D cleric” like, and I like it.
I have a question: I would like to use mace/shield as main weapon, and I’d like to take Honorable shield trait, lowering the honor line by 10.
Do you think that the loss of Healing Power (and Pure of voice trait) is too much?
I didn’t test it yet, but I’d like to have your impressions.
Thanks

If you did that, I’d use either Purity or Meditation Mastery + Contemplation of Purity over Stand Your Ground for condition removal. You could get away with it, but your damage would lack a little more with Mace/Shield.

With such a build, are you still the tank in a dungeon? Or should they find someone else to tank?

If there were tanks in this game, there’s no reason you couldn’t be it with this build.

When I’m talking about tanking, I didn’t mean staying there taking hits, but keeping the monster attention so it does not switch to teammate.

I have never done a single dungeon yet so…

How is this build about survavibility in comparison with the classical AH build? And at level 55, where should I put my points in priority, knowing I can’t go above 20 anywhere yet?

Thanks

Aggro is a little more complicated than you’re probably used to if you haven’t done any dungeons yet. It’s not quite like in other MMOs.

I personally find it more survivable than most AH builds, but I can’t say anything for before level 80. My Guardian was my first character and I pretty much just threw points around where I fancied and went on my way with map completion while leveling.

As for now, for levelling, I followed the [Guide] Hammer and Altruistic Healing gameplay sticky link. Sure I have not AH yet, but the virtue recharging when I kill an enemy allows me to spam virtue of justice against trash mobs and so apply blind and vulnerability.

Your build looks fine as well, I’ll have to think about it. And perhaps less common than a AH guardian. Using virtues sounds fine. Too bad I then loose the spam virtue thing. As you have in your build a lot of boons on virtue activation, but we have to wait for the whole recharge time… which is quite long in the middle of a fight…

Yes I know the aggro is not like other mmo. I have read the aggro takes toughness in consideration too, but you do not improve toughness a lot in the traits it seems. It takes damage in consideration too, the guardian is not the best dps around as well. That’s why I asked.

Thanks

Oh btw I wonder… this build is about healing power… so can we imagine playing it with mace/shield for even more survability? Will the mace healing scale well with the healing power of this build?

I don’t see why not but however that depends on the healing power of the skills. I be lying if i told you I actually remembered that. But maybe someone be nice enough to repost it here.

Do you have the same problem / bug with Energy runes, runes because they do not always work properly when changing weapons. The first time when you change weapons everything is ok but then it does not always restore to combat evasion.

I’ve seen it happen, but it’s extremely rare. It’s never gotten me killed or anything. It may have something to do with the Weakness condition, but I’m unsure.

You changed your utility just for me. ToT

I’m rolling a full bunker S/D ele now, we have to duel! Even if it lasts an hour >.>

Weakness may have an effect, but two days ago I tested on the WvWvW with a friend from another server activity sigils Energy, he just stood there and attack skills No.1 and I avoided and guarded the endurance bar. And what change weapons disagreed restore endurance to me, and I did not have imposed any condition.

I am 62 now, just switched yesterday to try your build. I have put 30 points in virtues, 10 in valor and the remaining in honor if I remember well. I bought a new greatsword, and a good focus to go with my 1h sword.
I also crafted a cleric level 60 armor.
No time to try it yet as I went to bed before fighting with it, but this evening I’ll try my personal story with… ^^
I guess I’ll have to figure out all those changes, because this is a very different way of fight than with my previous tank build with my hammer.
I wonder… does the focus alteration removal skill works on ourself as well?

I like this build. I’d been running a 0/0/30/20/20 meditation build prior w/ GS and Scepter/Shield. I’ve switched to this build, but I’m still using the shield, once I’m done lvling my ele, I’ll craft a focus for my Guard’s offhand.

I’ve been trying to work out whether this build would work better w/ full Soldier’s vs full Cleric’s (currently, I use full clerics) for a WvW focused player. I think it comes down to your approach, if you want to do more party-wide support go cleric’s, if you want to be a bit more survivable, go Soldier’s.

Looking at the math (keeping runes and skills the same and traits at 0/0/10/30/30), when you run up against lower power, lower crit enemies, the higher HP is an advantage, against higher power, higher crit enemies the vitality increase is an advantage.

I made a few base assumptions to come up with what I thought your average (stats, not skill), decent (skill, not stats) WvW player would look like, and I went with 25/25 Crit Chance/Dmg, 2100 power and 1000 Wp Dmg with a 1 Coef to get what I felt was the average dmg you would take per attack. Does that seem reasonable?

I also looked at how much healing a guard could reasonably expect with this build and came up with the following: Regen 67% of the time (SvYrSlvs & HldTLn), VoR passive heal @ 1/3 (every 3 seconds) and healing from Shelter at 1/30 (every 30 seconds). I left the active VoR out because it is less effective over time and is a trade-off w/ the passive effect. Obviously, you’ll use it to spike heal and eliminate the passive effect, so I looked at the two as mutuality exclusive and chose the one w/ a bit more healing over time.

It looks like running Cleric’s will net you about 120 more health per second vs Soldier’s. The trade off is in vitality where Cleric’s gets you 13,805 & Soldier’s gets you 20,245.

I then took the average dmg per attack, subtracted the average healing per second and divided the net dmg against your vitality to see what % of total health you would lose. The point here isn’t to mimic an individual attack but to average your play experience out over time.

I got the following two results:

Cleric’s: (868.6 – 441.42)/13,805 = 3.1%
Soldier’s: (868.6 – 324.12)/20,245 = 2.7%

In the end, your party will appreciate the added Healing Power, but with Soldier’s you should be better able to tank spike dmg while your healing is on CD. Again, your playstyle should dictate your gear choice.

Either way, if you are going to run this build, you’ll get the most damage mitigation out of Cleric’s or Soldier’s vs any of the other armor types. Great build.

I used the official wiki for my calculations.

I really have to learn to fight with such a build I’m 62, just switched to this build, and did the 59th personal story.
I died once and was on the ground two or three times
The lack of good condition remover is an issue. Perhaps I should use the mace so I have a bit more heal, sword+focus is a bit agressive with not enough protection…

Pixels: You forgot the most important reason to be running cleric’s over soldier’s.

Selfless Daring (heal on dodge roll).

THAT is what makes cleric’s gear and sigils of energy a must in this build.

I have a question about an adjustment to your build. you might have said something somewhere but i might have missed it. What about changing (in honor) your IX to I. So removing the cooldowns on your gs but you are giving yourself more retaliation and since it comes up faster would it be a better choice? I have been playing your build for a while and i find myself switching weapons alot so i dont feel i get the usefulness out of the cd reduction when compaired to how often you get aegis

Setis.4390:

Pixels: You forgot the most important reason to be running cleric’s over soldier’s.

Selfless Daring (heal on dodge roll).

THAT is what makes cleric’s gear and sigils of energy a must in this build.

Setis, doh! Thank you, what’s crazy is adding that into the healing, both sets come to exactly the same damage mitigation over time.

Ok I’m starting to figure out how to use this build
btw don’t you think the staff as secondary weapon could be good too? It provides some heal with power, a bit of range, and it is a two handed weapon so it benefits the 2H weapon trait…

@hithlain I think the staff is a great weapon for many guardian builds. I’m not entirely sure how well its heals scale with +healing power. I carry one of every weapon on my guardian anyway but i haven’t sat back and tested how well it scales compared to other weapon sets (like the mace). I know the staff works well with AH because of the boon spreading and the burst of heals you receive from it, but I would need to test the scaling with clerics. I like to used the default GS and S/F but i also use Mace or scepter with a focus or shield. I find myself not using the staff as much because the utility it offers (in its heals and buffs) doesn’t feel as useful when you have large healing and boosted boon duration built into the build itself (at least when you can use the scepter for range). The might offered by the staff, however, should not be underestimated, especially considering the lengthened boon durations of this build. In the end i think, like a lot of builds, it comes down to personal preference and specific play-style you want to nail down.

The weapon sets certainly aren’t set in stone for this build. Treat it more as a skeleton than anything. In addition to my GS/sword+focus, I carry a hammer and scepter. I have a staff, but it’s part of my zerker set.

I have all weapons on me, but as I’m still on my levelling path, many weapons I have are 10 levels or so below my level ^^

you’ll slowly rack them up. ; )) i love the staff as a Guard, but using this build, i tend to favor other weapon choices a lot more – namely hammer, mace/shield for me. Chris’ original choices are of course great as well. mace / focus is a good set as well.

the staff i prefer when i have higher crit chance. ; )) but either way, find something that works for you! this really is a fun build.

I’m currently using http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bowl_of_Orrian_Truffle_and_Meat_Stew.

Combined with our Vigor uptime and Energy Sigils i can get an amazing amount of dodges (and heals with Selfless Daring). The Might on dodge also adds some needed damage.

Is after eating the food, vigor adds up to 40% faster restoration of endurance? I have not noticed anything like that. Could you also to replace one rune in the Focus on Superrior rune of battle to make up for the damage.

Without endurance food, base regen gives you one dodge every 10 seconds (5% endurance per second). With max endurance food, you get a dodge roll every 7 seconds from base regen. Plus 1 stack of might per dodge roll. I still prefer the 88 health per second + 700 extra health from Mango Pies though. And they’re dirt cheap.

The off-hand sigil can be whatever. I just prefer the stacking ones.

has anyone here tried out Battle Presence since the fix? going down 30 deep the virtues line, AR is almost a must have for me and can really add utility in a group setting if you so desire using this build. depending on how much healing power you have, you could keep your allies (600 range?) health up decently. plus 3 conditions removed to boot when activated for you and allies nearby (according to wiki).

though that would leave a little less choice for condi removal (as bugged as PoV is). thoughts?

I use it when I’m commanding and don’t plan on being focus-fired with conditions.

No Cleric’s ascended amulets. Lovely. My official recommendation in relation to this build is that ascended amulets not be bothered with outside of use for AR in fractals. The loss of healing power from the two rings is almost too much as is to maintain survivability (not a word) in high-pressure WvW and PvE.

If you aren’t as worried about really high longevity, go ahead and pick up however much non-Cleric’s gear you’d like.

Edit: I’ll personally be banking even my Ascended rings except to use for fractals.

Yes, it’s a pretty bad neglect. But they may be added later, hopefully, if they are to have any sense. I am not even getting Ascended gear until that day comes, because I am not too fond of the Fractals to begin with, so I don’t care for Agony Resistance.

On the other hand, for those of us who like Healing Power, Battle Presence was finally fixed, and even improved with Absolute Resolution for those who would choose to go that way.